Georgia Power

Georgia Power describes itself as "an investor-owned, tax-paying utility that serves 2.25 million customers in all but four of Georgia's 159 counties." It is the largest of four electric utilities comprising Southern Company.

In 2006 the Savannah Electric & Power Company, a separate subsidiary of Southern Company, was merged into Georgia Power.

Transmission system
Georgia Power utilizes transmission lines carrying 115,00 volts, 230,000 volts and 500,000 volts. Georgia Power has interconnections with the Tennessee Valley Authority to the north, Alabama Power Company to the west, South Carolina Gas and Electric and Duke Energy to the east, and Florida Power and Light to the south.

Georgia Power and coal
Georgia Power operates Scherer Steam Generating Station. In January 2009, Sue Sturgis of the Institute of Southern Studies compiled a list of the 100 most polluting coal plants in the United States in terms of coal combustion waste (CCW) stored in surface impoundments like the one involved in the TVA Kingston Fossil Plant coal ash spill. The data came from the EPA's Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) for 2006, the most recent year available.

Coal Plant Conversion
In March 2009 the Georgia Public Service Commission approved Georgia Power's request to convert its Mitchell Steam Generating Plant (Georgia) Unit 3 from coal-fired to biomass. Located near Albany, Georgia, the facility will reportedly be able to produce 96 megawatts of power once the conversion is completed in June 2012, making it one of the largest biomass power plants in the United States. Georgia Power says it will draw on wood fuel from suppliers within a 100-mile radius of the power plant, and plans to begin the conversion by spring 2011. Plant Mitchell is one of many Coal plant conversion projects throughout the U.S.

Proposed coal unit retirements
In March 2011, Georgia Power announced that it expects to request approval from the Georgia Public Service Commission to decertify two coal-generating units 1 and 2 at the Harllee Branch Generating Plant, totaling 569 megawatts. The company expects to ask for decertification of the units as of the effective dates of the Georgia Multipollutant Rule, which are currently anticipated to be Dec. 31, 2013 for unit 1 and Oct. 1, 2013 for unit 2. GP said the costs of upgrades would be uneconomical for its customers. The commission is expected to vote on the decertification request in spring 2012.

Georgia Power and nuclear
Georgia Power generates energy from two nuclear plants in Georgia -- Plant Hatch and Plant Vogtle -- comprising 19 percent of the company's generating sources in 2008.

In a bid to add two reactors to the Vogtle plant, Georgia Power lobbied the state legislature for the ability "to charge electric customers for construction costs before the nuclear plants start producing electricity," referred to as construction work in progress. The legislature passed CWIP, as Senate Bill 31, but environmentalists filed a legal challenge to the measure in September 2009. The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy argued that in giving "Georgia Power permission to charge electric customers for construction costs before the nuclear plants start producing electricity, that the law amounted to a sort of tax that gives the utility something for nothing." The Alliance lawsuit states: "The adoption of the nuclear tariff by the Georgia General Assembly creates an unconstitutional gratuity in favor of Georgia Power and its stockholders, for, among other reasons, paying such stockholders of Georgia Power a return on equity in excess of $1 billion before Units 3 and 4 at Plant Vogtle are even put into service, i.e., for services which have not been rendered." However state utility regulators agreed to Georgia Power’s plans for the two 1,100-megawatt reactors.

In August 2009 federal regulators completed their review of safety and environmental issues related to building two additional reactors at the site and granted Georgia Power a federal permit, called an early-site permit, to begin preliminary construction work. The permit is good for 20 years, but the utility still needs to secure a combined operating license from federal regulators. Construction of the reactors is expected to be completed by 2017. The utility’s portion of the total estimated $14 billion cost will be $6.4 billion.

Fossil fuel power plants
In 2008 coal accounted for 74% of Georgia Power's generation source. Georgia Power owns the following plants:

Georgia Power plans to convert the 1960s coal-fired Plant McDonough into a bigger power plant that uses natural gas. The conversion will replace 540 megawatts of coal-fired generation with more than 2,500 megawatts of natural gas generation.

Contact information
Georgia Power Company 241 Ralph McGill Boulevard NE Atlanta, GA 30308 Phone: 404-506-6526 Website: http://www.georgiapower.com

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